“I worked at Peavey. Yes, I designed them and they were all the same across the range of models. The bobbins changed early on, but they were always wound with the same specs on both neck and bridge pickups. The current Fender made pickups have the same exact specs.
The initial bobbins were supplied by a domestic supplier, then later tooled overseas. By early 2000, we were told to have the winding and assembly outsourced. I had approved the samples, but left before they were actually put into production. That would have been after spring 2000. All of the parts (bobbins, magnets, base plates, magnet wire, cables and wax dipping process were all the same so you really can’t distinguish the domestic from the outsourced pickups. It took a long time to approve them, but they did such a good job that there really was no difference. EVH was sent samples and he approved them as well.
I worked at Fender (Nashville) for 11 years after Peavey. They wanted me to move to Corona, but they couldn’t come through on their promises, so I turned down moving there. I did commute between there and Nashville for a little over a year and a half.They picked my brain a little before I realized they were trying to lure EVH away. I already discussed what I did with the pickups casually to coworkers. After the guitar was released, I got copies of the pickup specs and blueprints. They are the same specs. They made up a story (as he did with Peavey) about trying to please him and having to make dozens of pickups…but they are the same specs. When I had to go through it, I had to make dozens and heard “No, this is too weak, this too warm, this not warm enough, etc. I finally sent him the first set of pickups, and that was it. smile emoticon I did use the EBMM for reference, but couldn’t do exactly as they had done, so I had to do my own thing.” ~Jim DeCola
